


when i sleep, all my dreams turn out the same

by hyperandrogenism



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Dissociation, Hurt No Comfort, Injury, Muteness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers, Stream of Consciousness, Torture, Trauma, getting into dead dove territory lol, not super canon compliant but mostly is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:14:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27047794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperandrogenism/pseuds/hyperandrogenism
Summary: "The first few days weren't hard. Annoying, yeah, but not hard. That was when Impactor was still holding out hope of being rescued and fantasizing about breaking out anddoing something.Then days stretched into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Months evolved into years. Years of hearing every single thing that goes on, years of being tortured, years of being helpless and useless and weak and reminded of it every second of every minute of every hour of every day."
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	when i sleep, all my dreams turn out the same

**Author's Note:**

> umm. yeah ❤️ i have a dissociative disorder and cptsd and home of sexual and dis of abled so i project on impactor ❤️❤️❤️
> 
> my ap lang teacher and my therapist are gonna appear outside my bedroom window tonight and haunt me
> 
> also i actually EDITED this one omg im so proud
> 
> title from weak by seether
> 
> (lowkey trauma dump/tmi in the rest of this note)
> 
> yall without trauma would not believe the shit you can dissociate through. the mind on trauma is amazing.
> 
> somehow this is inspired by me having my iud strings trimmed yesterday, dont ask me how because i have no idea (this fic doesnt have any sexual torture or anything just Somehow in my brain thats related)
> 
> anyway impactor has osdd-2 and cptsd ❤️❤️❤️

The first few days weren't hard. Annoying, yeah, but not hard. That was when Impactor was still holding out hope of being rescued and fantasizing about breaking out and  _ doing something. _

Then days stretched into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Months evolved into years. Years of hearing every single thing that goes on, years of being tortured, years of being helpless and useless and weak and reminded of it every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

Slowly, Impactor shuts down. It doesn't help anything to fight, to rage at the bars of his cell, to take out a Decepticon just to have hours added to the daily torture. So he shuts down, hardly moving from his spot staring at the floor and floating above his own frame like a ghost while screaming and begging of his hellmates echoes through the cell.

Today, Overlord's unlucky pick says " _ no _ " three hundred and eighty-seven times before that last desperate scream that's stopped abruptly with a gunshot. Impactor sighs.

He doesn't know how long it's been since he last spoke. His vocalizer shorted out at least a year ago—from screaming and crying and begging for his life, for his death, for his sanity—and there's no one to repair it. The only noises he can make are rasps and static.

Overlord and Stalker, they both hate it. They love to hear the agony they inflict on their victims. It isn't _ fun  _ to torture a mech who stares at the ceiling and keeps his mouth shut and his frame completely limp. There's no reward to it. Carving open a body, breaking struts, playing with organs—the only difference between doing it to Impactor and doing it to a dead body is that he bleeds. The only reason they keep him around is the bragging rights of breaking a Wrecker.

The cell door opens and Impactor doesn't look up. It's the same three 'Cons coming to get him, just like it is every day. They have to haul him up, because he can't feel his legs, and like always they have to grapple with the dead weight of his frame before they finally get a good grip on him.

They all but carry him down the hall to the infirmary-turned-torture chamber. Impactor remembers being taken there by Fortress Maximus himself after starting a bad fight with another inmate (that he'd won, of course), cuffed to the table the same way he's being restrained now and yelled at and told to  _ be better _ , like he's a youngling who cheated on a test. He'd raged at Fortress Maximus hard enough to dislocate his shoulder lunging at him. The medic had been forced to drug him while Fortress Maximus and two other wardens held him down just to be able to get near him, and he'd still sent all of them to the infirmary themselves with dented plating and a couple broken struts. How he acts now is farther from that than Impactor would have thought is possible three years ago.

He's strapped down on the same table, the surface already dripping with energon. There's a body in the corner, missing three of its limbs and the right half of its head. Impactor barely registers it, but briefly wonders if that's going to be part of today's fun. Stalker steps up to the table and for a brief second Impactor locks optics with him—no matter how much he sees it or how out of his body he is, the glee in those optics always gives Impactor chills, and every day he's compelled to check for it—then his optics are back at the ceiling, counting the tiles over and over.

Stalker monologues first. A short one, but a monologue nonetheless. In the beginning it had enraged Impactor, to hear this puny little 'Con gloat about having the great Wrecker leader all laid out for him to play with, but within a year he'd learned no matter how hard he fights nothing comes of it.

Then the real torture starts. Vaguely, Impactor hears a motor starting up, but the holes in the ceiling are too interesting for him to care about the dulled pain. Most of the pain sensors in his body are damaged, cut and beat and ripped beyond the ability to self repair, but Impactor doesn't feel the need to tell anyone.

One hundred and seventy-three holes in the ceiling. Impactor moves on to categorizing the energon stains by shape and age.

At first it had been humiliating to be broken and laid low like this by a mech half his size. It was a point of pride to prove how undamaged he was, even after spending hours being taken apart and put back together. Now, years into this, Impactor doesn't care anymore. It doesn't matter because hating it isn't going to stop it or make it any less awful.

The session isn't as long today. Impactor gets to seven categories, averaging eighteen stains each, of energon stains before he moves on to burn marks (four categories with the biggest having twenty-three) and finally scratches (sixty-four total). Usually he gets bored enough to count the tiles themselves, but Stalker ends early because some other prisoner has acted up and Overlord needs them dead.

Being patched up at the end is Impactor's favorite part. Stalker leaves and he can come back to himself a little, to reassure the little Autobot medic the 'Cons hadn't cared enough about to kill. The medic's hands shake hard while he welds up Impactor's wounds, and Impactor rests his hand on his shoulder to give him some comfort. He gives the tiny mech a quick one armed hug and an "any day now, they'll save us, I promise" before the same 'Cons come back to take him to his cell (even though he knows it's only a matter of time until Overlord or Stalker doesn't see the usefulness in that medic, he's starting to slip and get sloppy).

They throw him down and slam the cell door shut, laughing at how Impactor stiffly picks himself up and sits on the same bench he always sits on and goes right back to staring at the floor, counting how many times the mech being tortured by Overlord screams " _ please _ ".

**Author's Note:**

> bully me on tumblr [@himboimpactor](https://himboimpactor.tumblr.com/) lol


End file.
